Do people really not know what to eat?

[WilderHawthorn]

Watching ‘what not to eat’, and the family they’ve found are just hopeless. Four small children all shovelled full of UPF junk, parents both obese, freely admit to eating crap constantly.

How adults choose to feed themselves is their choice, but to feed four small kids that much junk? It’s bordering on abuse. An apple/banana costs the same as a packet of crisps, jacket potato is one of the cheapest meals you can make, basic porridge oats and milk for breakfast, it’s not difficult to eat whole foods, so why rely on packaged things?

Freely admit I judge those who feed their children this way and truly despair over childhood obesity stats. I work full time, have 4 DC, DH works full time and I volunteer. I’m very time poor and partially disabled, I still feed my kids well and it doesn’t cost me a fortune. Taught myself to cook. There’s no excuse!

We have one or two “cheat” days a week where dinner will be out of the freezer, I don’t care what anyone says. The other 5 are home cooked meals. Good to have a balance.

Using the word ‘cheat’ to describe food is not good. There is no such thing as bad food.

That's why the poster put it in inverted commas! And obviously some food is better than others especially depending on the amount eaten.

It would not be tv if they didn’t find an extreme family. They are not untypical of this type of family but they are in a minority. I’m never quite sure where obesity figures come from. Who is weighing and tracking these dc? In our middle class area, I rarely saw an obese child so maybe there should be regional initiatives because most parents do a good job.

We have one or two “cheat” days a week where dinner will be out of the freezer, I don’t care what anyone says. The other 5 are home cooked meals. Good to have a balance.
Whats wrong with meals out of a freezer? We are on freezer tea tonight. I usually batch cooking once every 3 weeks to save time.

An apple/banana costs the same as a packet of crisps

Indeed. Just a pity apples/bananas are crap and crisps are awesome.

While an apple or a banana cost the same as a bag of crisps, the bunch of banana's brought because someone couldn't get enough last week is now rotting because they don't want that now. The bag of crisps can sit there for months without going off.

It doesn't make it right, and we should all be making better choices, particularly for children - but it is not quite as black and white as you make out.

Meal planning for some is a skill they never learnt - to cook from scratch you need the ingredients, which takes planning.

UPF's have been designed to be the easiest choice.

If you posted on here saying you feed your children bananas, porridge and jacket potato, everyone would be telling you that it's too many carbs anyway

🤣🤣🤣

It’s pure laziness to feed your kid such crap. Once a week is just about the limit, though it shouldn’t even be that much. Any more than that and you should be ashamed. Get off your arse and feed them properly. The statistics on the appalling diet that parents are feeding their kids in this country are shocking.

Actually a banana or apple costs far less than a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar.

There’s no excuse for feeding children junk.

I haven’t watched the first episode, only the second. It’s annoying that they’ve found some people to work with that are obvious extremes. I guess it wouldn’t have the same shock-tainment element and the results wouldn’t be as dramatic.

it’s a shame they felt they needed to attract viewers through sound-bites, social media clips and poorly disguised poverty-porn.

There’s always a ‘whataboutery’ element to this, the examples I used were deliberately cheap so money couldn’t be used as an argument for UPF junk.

I’ve fed the kids fish fingers sometimes, absolutely normal, but once a fortnight maybe? UPF for every meal and snack is a fast track to poor health and a lifetime of associated poor outcomes.

However, I think the premise is good but they should push for achievable and sustainable changes.

@FurForksSakeinterestingly, the family aren’t sensationalist or a really awful example, they are just a normal, overweight family with jobs and kids. This is the problem, I see families like them and way worse on a daily basis, it’s sad and depressing

Some people go 'im rubbish at cooking' and then have babies and then dont have the time or mental energy to learn to cook. And cooking is trial and error when you first start out, which you dont really have the luxury of doing when kids will refect foods based on nothing. So the cycle continues.
Thats just one example.
Some people ARE just lazy, but there's plenty of other reasons too.
Some people also genuinely have no idea HOW bad upf are. They grew up with it and 'everyone was fine' so see no reason to change, change is hard and uncomfortable and a lot of people will simply take the easier route as its not as clear to them as apples = health, crisps = early death.

.... fuck, I want some crisps now.

I suspect a lot of people just don't care that much about food - they see it as fuel and aren't that interested in whether it's healthy or not.

Lots of people also seem to think they can do/eat/drink/smoke whatever they want or parent however they want with no responsibility for the consequences because the nhs or the schools will fix it. I am old.

Judging by the people I saw walking around a major northern city centre yesterday, OP - the answer is a big fat massive NO.

I think perhaps people just need to try eating healthily with minimal UPF, for a few weeks say, to see how much better it is for them - weight, energy, skin, sleep. Then when they revert to junk they’ll see just how much diet contributes to how you feel. When I eat junk I feel like SHIT afterwards. Truly. That enough has been a deterrent against eating garbage on a regular or semi-regular basis.

In 2022/23, more than 730 children were admitted to hospital with malnutrition, rickets or scurvy – all conditions that are entirely preventable.

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) now account for more than half (59%) of the daily calorific intake of 7-year-olds.

Obesity rates among children have risen to the highest level since records began. Almost 1 in 4 children (24%) are now overweight or obese by the time they start primary school, and more than 1 in 3 (36%) are overweight or obese by the time they leave it. Obesity-related complications already affect 1.2 million children.

All from the KingsFund.org.

I dont think they're in the minority.

I think what no one seems to acknowledge or voice very much is that people like this sort of food. My partner enjoys a bland beige diet. He much prefers something out of a packet. He wont eat fresh cooked, colourful, flavourful food that I cook (and Im an excellent cook), wont eat veg very much unless they're mushy peas and even then most of them get chucked from the plate to the bin, often veg is on his plate as some sort of decoration. He loves things in tins, wont eat my lovely fresh soups for example, wants some rubbish in a tin. Wouldnt eat a fresh pasta or ragu sauce/curry sauce, would want it out of a jar (dolmio or Grossmans)

Theres a processed taste that people like I think. I cant stand it.

I haven't seen the programme but I am similar to you OP in that I work full time, so does my DH (more than ft in fact), we run a business on the side, and we have three kids. And I have empathy with these families tbh because I know you're not supposed to say it on MN but I find the mental load of planning and shopping for and cooking meals from scratch every day of the week really wearing. Yes, I know our grandmothers and our great grandmothers could feed the kids for five days with a big sack of flour and a rolling pin but I am not them, I do find it really hard. I still do it because I care about their bloody health but I'm not bloody happy about it!

My kids probably have a terrible diet compared to a lot on here, it's a mixture of my terrible cooking skills, the fact that I hate cooking, the fact that they are all fussy with different things and lack of time. They often eat frozen pizzas, ready meals or microwave burgers. We have McDonald's once a week too.

I know the episode you mean and think you're being a bit judgy tbh. The parents bad habits (brownie/noodles and cookies for lunch and 2 big bars of chocolate each evening) were not being imposed on the children. The children were not obese or even remotely overweight and some of the families 'awful' eating was a jar of dolmio for their spag bol.